Broadcom or Cisco responsibility? [LWN.net]

Broadcom or Cisco responsibility?

Posted Dec 16, 2008 23:33 UTC (Tue) by xoddam (subscriber, #2322)
In reply to: FSF, OSI and Busybox by landley
Parent article: The FSF raises the stakes for Cisco

> They're suing Cisco over a Broadcom toolchain, which as far as I
> can tell Broadcom never gave Cisco the source to in the first place.

It's even theoretically possible that the supplier was abiding by the
licence, if they offered the source but the integrator never got
around to obtaining it. OTOH a more likely scenario is that the
supplier failed to supply correct and/or complete corresponding
source code and the integrator accepted the binaries without
confirming that the source matched.

Either way, if Cisco is redistributing software, it's Cisco's
responsibility to ensure that it's in compliance with the copyright
requirements on that software. Which, in the case of GPL'd software,
means actually obtaining the corresponding source code from the
supplier and making it available down the line.

(Of course I know nothing of the facts here, I'm just speculating).

> The FSF is chosing to sue Cisco rather than Broadcom...

If it's Cisco and not Broadcom which is making software derived from
FSF-copyrighted code available to the public in violation of the
licence, this is logical. It's Cisco's responsibility to make sure
it follows the licence conditions, even if the problem originated
elsewhere.

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Broadcom or Cisco responsibility?

Posted Dec 17, 2008 0:31 UTC (Wed) by dlang (guest, #313) [Link] (1 responses)

note that since the FSF isn't suing about the kernel, just userspace tools, this speculation about broadcom drivers seems out of place. it's only if someone who has copyright on what the broadcom drivers are derived from sues that they have the standing to ask for them.

much as they would like to, the FSF cannot say that any company failed to comply with the GPL on something the FSF controls and therefor looses the ability to use the GPL on something the FSF doesn't control

now, I agree that a settlement is probably going to cover all GPL software, but they already did that and the FSF is playing hardball.

"toolchain", not "driver"

Posted Dec 17, 2008 0:44 UTC (Wed) by xoddam (subscriber, #2322) [Link]

I understand that Rob Landley has some knowledge of the case beyond what has been announced by the FSF and SFLC. The information we have is that the FSF is suing with regard to FSF-copyrighted material, and Landley indicates above that it has something to do with a toolchain that Broadcom supplied to Cisco.

That's "toolchain", not "driver", no mention of the Linux kernel.